Matagot Takenoko Board Game | Bamboo Farming Game | Panda Themed Strategy Fun Family Game for Adults and Kids | Ages 8+ | 2-4 Players | Average Playtime 45 Minutes | Made by Matagot

My 6 year old son loves playing board games with me when I get home from work every night. Unfortunately his idea of a good board game is Candy Land. I've been trying to find a game that has some strategy but that's simple enough for him to follow. I discovered "Sushi Go!" which is really a fantastic game that I would highly recommend. We've been playing that for the last month or two and I decided to look for something new. I found this and it got great reviews but it sounded pretty lame. Take care of a panda bear and please the emperor. But it got 4.7 stars so I gave it a shot. Here's what I think. Pros: + The length of the game is perfect. It takes us about 45 minutes to play through a full game. + It's challenging but easy enough for a 6-7 year old to pick up if they're patient and have played a couple board games in the past. This might be a little tough for a 6 year old that's never played a board game before. + There is a surprising amount of strategy involved and planning ahead. + The game itself and the pieces are really is beautifully made. + There's no text to read, just pictures. This is huge for a child new to reading. + It's fun for adults and children. + I really enjoy playing the game with just two people but I can see how it would be even better with 3 or 4. Cons: - Are there any? I'm struggling to think of something I don't like. If I had any complaints at all I'd say that for an adult only game the strategy is a little light. Here's a basic summary of the game-play. You're tasked with taking care of a garden and panda bear to please the emperor of Japan. You're given some cards that have different point values on them. They have different tasks on them to earn the points. You can pick more cards as the game goes along. For example you can grow a specific amount of pink and yellow bamboo to get the points on one card, you can have the panda eat bamboo to get points from another card, or you can create different shapes in the garden for the last type of card. You can't just grow bamboo anywhere, you need to have water. The water comes from a lake in the middle of the board and you need to run pipes to the areas of the garden where you want water. You can also move the panda and the gardener around the board where they will either grow or eat bamboo respectively. There are some modifiers you can add to each piece of the garden to give it a pond, make bamboo grow twice as fast, or build a fence so the panda can't eat bamboo there. Each round you also roll dice which affects the weather and adds some additional complexity to the game. For example, if there's a lightning storm the panda gets scared and runs somewhere random and eats bamboo wherever he lands. If it's sunny you get to take 3 actions during your turn instead of the normal 2, etc... Overall this is a great game. I'm really glad I found it and so is my son. Highly recommended 5 stars!

Takenoko is a light strategy game where players take on the role of an imperial gardener charged with tending the emperor's bamboo garden and caring for his hungry giant panda. Players compete to earn the most victory points from completing tasks. Tasks come in 3 varieties: feeding the panda, farming bamboo, and placing bamboo fields. Takenoko is a great family game and gateway game. The rules are simple and easy to learn. The rulebook very clearly explains the player actions and includes illustrations that are both helpful and humorous. The weather die is pleasantly thematic. Each type of weather influences the current player's turn in a unique way (an extra action, a garden improvement, a duplicate action, and so on). This may inject more luck than some gamers are comfortable with, but we found learning to roll with the weather conditions to be a meaningful part of the gameplay. My wife fell in love with Takenoko at first site. The artwork is adorable. The title literally means "bamboo shoot". Takenoko also comes in a well designed box and includes high quality components. The box art, wooden bamboo segments, panda & gardener miniatures, and bamboo field game pieces have a consistent friendly and colorful theme. Quick Summary: 2-4 players, 45 minutes + cute + really cute ~_^ + extremely cute ^_^ (ok, I'm done ~_^) + high quality box and components + quick and fun + great family game + easy to learn + easy to teach + great gateway game • wish we had the collectors edition and the chibis expansion - my wife wants to frame the box @_@

After befriending some board-game-aholics, I've recently been reinstating family game night at our house; this time, however, we have branched out beyond Monopoly (thank God). Takenoko is a cute, fun board game with lush, cartoony artwork by one of my favorite board game designers, Antoine Bauza, and slightly complex but easy to pick up rules. It is a set building game, which I love, so every gameplay the garden ends up looking different, which gives the game a lot of replayability. The basic premise is that the Emperor of China has gifted the Emperor of Japan with a panda; the panda roams the Imperial Gardens, and the poor overworked gardener has to do his best to prevent the panda from gobbling down all of his hard-grown bamboo. There are three types of goals to accomplish: panda goals, which require having the panda eat certain amounts and colors of bamboo (of which there are three); gardener goals, which require you to grow a certain number and color of bamboo with specific growing conditions; and emperor goals, which require you to place the garden tiles according to the emperor's aesthetic preferences. Each player gets to complete two distinct actions on their turn out of five possible actions, which varies from placing garden tiles to having the gardener grow bamboo. Starting on the second turn, players get to roll a weather dice that basically gives you an extra free action. The first player to complete eight goals starts the "endgame" aka last turn, and he player with the highest points wins. There are complexities in the rules, like the placement of the garden tiles, the movement of the panda and gardener, and watering the garden, so I highly recommend that at least one player watch the tutorial video under the Watch It Played series or the Tabletop video to get an idea of how to play. As for the learning curve... My mom is clever but doesn't adapt very easily to games with intricate rules. This one took her three attempts to fully understand, so it may not be the best game for board game novices. However, the general verdict seems to be it's SO FREAKING ADORABLE and THERE'S AN ACTUAL PANDA?! so most people, swayed by the cuteness of the illustrations and bright colored bamboo, and cute moveable panda and gardener figurines (whom my mom thought was a woman) will work extra hard to master. Buy it because... PANDAS.